Re: [tied] Birdo [was Re: Risoe fo the Feminine]

29-04-2004 21:02, alex wrote:

> Apparently something is not so easy to explain. The fem. vocative in
> Rom. is made with the help of a long "o" in the same manner as the
> masc. vocative is made with a long "e". How is to explain the use of a
> long "o" in Rom. if originaly there has been a Slavic short "o"?

But Romanian has no distinctive vowel length! Vowels may be phonetically
lengthened in some environments, and I suppose a vocative intonation may
favour drawled vowels, as in Polish, where all vowels are also
phonemically short: <Piotrze> may be pronounced [pjOts^E:::], with a
tonal high fall and rise on the last syllable if it expresses an
expectant attitude: 'Piotr, will you spare me a minute?'. But such
prolonged vowels should not be confused with long phonemes.

Piotr